Ill. Admin. Code tit. 74 , 760 app A Background Information

• Library: Illinois Administrative Code
• Edition: 2023
• Currency: Current through Register Vol. 47, No. 52, December 29, 2023
• Citation: Ill. Admin. Code tit. 74 , 760 app A
• Year: 2023

a) Section 15-1501 of the Act provides that, when applying and construing the Act, consideration must be given to the need to promote uniformity of the law with respect to its subject matter among states that enact it. [ 765 ILCS 15 -1501]. Given the provisions of Section 15-1501, this Appendix is intended to provide background that will be useful to persons attempting to interpret the Act.

b) Every state has enacted legislation requiring that holders of presumptively abandoned or unclaimed property report and deliver that property to the state. A majority of states have adopted some form of one of the uniform acts promulgated by the Uniform Law Commission (ULC). The problem of "lucrative silence" by holders motivated the ULC to draft and promulgate the original Uniform Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act (UDUPA) in 1954. Illinois passed its version of UDUPA in 1961. Illinois' current law is based on the ULC's Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act (RUUPA) that was approved and recommended for enactment in all states in 2016.

c) Various courts have attempted to lay out the purposes of state unclaimed property laws. The Minnesota Supreme Court summarized the four main purposes as:

1) to protect the interests of the owners of unclaimed property;

2) to relieve holders of the annoyance, expense and liability of keeping unclaimed property;

3) to preclude multiple liability; and

4) to give the adopting state use of considerable sums of money that otherwise is a windfall to holders. (State by Lord v. First National Bank, 313 N.W.2d 390, 393 (Minn. 1981))

d) Illinois' Appellate Court noted that Illinois' unclaimed property Act "protects the rights of unknown owners and gives the benefit of the use of the unclaimed property, most of which experience shows will never be claimed, to the State rather than the holders." (People ex rel. Fahner v. Chicago Transit Authority, 127 Ill. App. 3d 405, 408, 468 N.E.2d 1316, 1318 (1st Dist. 1984) citing People ex rel. Callahan v. Marshall Field & Co. (1980), 83 Ill. App. 3d 811, 404 N.E.2d 368; and Douglas Aircraft Co. v. Cranston (1962), 58 Cal. 2d 462, 374 P.2d 819)

e) State unclaimed property Acts prevent the unjust enrichment by holders of property to which they are not legally entitled and establish a process through which unclaimed property may be reunited with its rightful owner. These...